TIIE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO:
HOW TO MAKE THE
WAlR SHORT
AND THE
PEACE RIGH-TEOUS.
From the " New York Tribune" of May 27, 1861.
B OS TO N:
A. WILLIAMS & CO., 100 WASHINGTON ST.
1 861.
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GENEF, -L.. t,..A
GENERAL GORE 
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THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
As the war now raging on this continent involves nearly the
same elements that entered into the revolutionary history of the
French part of the island of St. Domingo, the teachings of that
history are unspeakably important to our government at this
moment. Though the St. Domingo crucible was smaller, and
the chemical ingredients perhaps a little more concentrated, the
result of that experiment must in the main determine that of our
grander one, except so far as we have the wisdom to modify it
by varying the manipulations. No existing example of African
slavery, as the basis of a European civilization, is probably
quite so old as was that of St. Domingo at the time of its annihilation, and none seems, on the whole, so well fortified against
change. Its was the first decisive encounter of the social forces
that belong to such a state of society wherever it exists, and
now that these forces have suddenly rushed into conflict here,
if we are wise, we shall discard vague traditions, that may
be traced back to refugee planters who threw themselves on
our hospitality under Galbaud, in 1793, and verify, before
believing, the histories that attribute all the "horrors" to
philanthropy acting on slaves, and recognize nothing but ruin
as the result.
The best sources of information in regard to the revolutionary
history of St. Domingo, being French, are the least accessible.
Bryan Edwards, and Rainsford, the principal English writers,
deal out most of the facts that concern us at second hand, with
English glosses of their own, and warped to suit an intensely
pro-slavery philosophy.   The  details of white  French eyewitnesses, such as Gen. Pamphile Lacroix, and Col. Malenfant,
whose prejudices, if they had any, were not in favor of the 
THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
negro, give a wholly different view of the case. The daylight
which is let in by them here and there, becomes the clear and
cloudless sunshine of a consistent and natural story in the work
of Victor Schcelcher, published in Paris in 1843, and still more,
if possible, in the much fuller history of B. Ardouin, Paris, 1855,
in which every important statement is verified by ample quotations from the original documents. After a careful study of
these authorities I present, as briefly as possible, an unvarnished tale of the period which is parallel to our own present
crisis, and shall call particular attention to some of its points.
The pride and prejudice of race and color may be great luxuries,
but St. Domingo can teach us what they cost.
The French revolution of 1789 found the population of the
colony of St. Domingo consisting of three classes. First, there
were about* 452,000 negro slaves, chattels, whose lives were
held cheap because they could easily be replaced from Africa.
Second, about 40,000 whites, divided into planters and petits
blancs, or poor whites. All whites, of pure blood, who did not
own more than twenty slaves, were reckoned poor or little.
Third, 28,00(, mulattoes, or men of mixed blood, in whatever
proportions. Their blood was considered tainted, and, though
free, they had no equality with white men in the eye of the
law, which carried their disabilities to such an extent, that one
who presumed to strike a white of any condition, was punished
by having his right hand cut off. Yet not a few of them were
rich and well educated, the class having possession of one-third
of the real estate of the colony, and one-fourth of the personal,
including slaves. To this class belonged a few freed Africans,
who were not more contemned by the whites than were the
lightest mulattoes. The prejudice against color seemed to have
a strength inversely proportionate to the difference of color
between the parties.
For many years prior to 1789, the colonists, especially of the
white proprietor class, had been aching to throw off the yoke
of the mother country, and, as an independent oligarchy, to
make their own laws, and administer their own affairs.  Hence,_
* Moreau St. Mery.
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THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
on the breaking out of the revolution in France, they at once
seized the occasion to carry out their views, and established
three provincial assemblies, the colony being divided into three
provinces, distinguished as the North, West, and South, which
in a little time nominated delegates to a general colonial con     vention, to meet at St. Marc. Thus the white slaveholders
initiated the insular revolution. The mulattoes, however, were
not uninterested nor without hope from what was going on in
France, that they would share the blessings of political reform.
The spirit of the white planters was soon manifested to be very
different from that of the revolutionists in the mother country.
The latter, by a decree of the National Assembly, March 8,
1789, had in favor of mulattoes expressly accorded political
privileges to all free persons over twenty-five years of age, who
were proprietors in the colonies. And they had also, in an
abstract way, August 20, 1789, declared that "all men are
born, and continue, free and equal as to their rights."  But
neither of these decrees having yet reached the colony in an
official form, on the second of November, 1789, Lacombe, a
mulatto, in a written. petition addressed to one of the aforesaid
provincial assemblies of white planters, requested that his class
might enjoy the benefit of this declaration of the rights of man,
and be represented in the assembly. They voted his petition
incendiary, and hung him! This was the first victim and the
first "horror."  Seventeen days after, Ferrand de Beaudiere,
a white man, of seventy years, who held an inferior judicial
office, for the crime of drawing up for some colored men a
memorial similar to that of Lacombe, was lynched and decapi     tated.  This was the second victim and the second "horror."
The convention at St. Marc proceeded at once to set at defiance
the special decree of the National Convention in favor of the
free men of the colonies, which had now reached the colony
officially, and went further to declare themselves independent of
the mother country, and to assert that they acted by the author     ity of their constituents, and not of the National Assembly. More
than that, they proceeded to seize the magazine at Leogane.
The governor, Peynier could not tolerate these usurpations,
and there resulted two governments. The national guard was
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5 
THlE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
divided, part serving the governor and part the planters' assembly of St. MIarc.. The latter stuck red pompons on their caps,
the former adhered to the white, and the two factions took the
names of pompons rouge and pompons blancs from this circumstance. The planters' assembly called the governor to their
bar to give an account of himself. He came and pronounced
their dissolution, ordering Col. Mauduit to disperse them, which
he did after an obstinate resistance, and the loss of fifteen men,
carrying off the flag of the pompons rouge.  The desperate
planters then offered to arm the free colored men, but on terms
so degrading, that they were not accepted. The mulattoes
preferred to serve the side of the mother country, as had also
the petits blancs and most of the professional men. They offered
to bear arms under the governor, but here the prejudice of color
came in, and they could not be allowed to wear the white pompon of the French service, but must be distinguished by a
yellow one. They returned the arms they had already received,
and took a neutral position.
The revolutionary quarrel between the pure whites continued to the 23d October, 1790, without any active interference from the free colored class, or any sign of interest on the
part of the slaves. At the latter date, Vincent Oge, a young
mulatto who had been residing in France for his education,
landed furtively at the Cape, without troops or arms. He put
himself at the head of two or three hundred of his class in
arms, and made a modest demand upon the planters' assembly
of the North, of the leg,al rights of his class. In this address
he took care to say, "I shall not have recourse to any raising
of the slave gangs;" "I never comprehended in my claims
the negroes in a state of slavery;" and " Our adversaries are
not merely unjust to us, but to themselves, for they do not seem
to know that their interests are one with ou)s."  The planters
gave him very little time to concentrate the strength that
belonged to his cause. They rushed on him with an over whelming force, and drove all whom they did not slay into the
Spanish part of the island.  The refugees were given up by
the Spanish governor, who only asked the cross of St. Louis as
the reward of his treachery! The punishment of these modest
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THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
mulattoes is worthy of particular mention, since, of all the
horrors afterwards perpetrated by colored or black man, there
was none to exceed it, and there had been nothing on the part
of the colored or black men to provoke it. Of the prisoners,
the white assembly formally condemned thirteen to the galleys,
twenty-t4wo to be gibbeted, and two-Oge and his lieutenant,
Chavannes-to have their arms, legs, thighs and hips broken
alive on the wheel, upon a scaffold, and then to live in their
torments with their faces towards heaven, in presence of
all beholders, as long as God should spare their lives. The
white assembly attended in a body to witness the spectacle,
and tbe heads of the victims, after their death, were paraded
on poles and made as public as possible. This was on the 25th
of February, 1791.
In the meantime the French National Assembly had
approved the stand taken by the colonial governor, and
ordered two battalions of troops to be sent to his aid.  Unfortunately, the partisans of the assembly of St. Marc, whon
great numbers had been driven to France by the governor,
found an opportunity to corrupt the troops, while they were in
the harbor of Brest.  So when they landed in St. Domingo,
in spite of Blanchelande, Peynier's successor, they took part
with the planters, and mounted the pompon rouge. The planters managed also to seduce the members of Col.- Mauduit's
regiment, and to attract by their gold and their condescension,
the petits blancs, and, like our present secessionists, they raised
an army of white vagabonds, whom they supported by levying
heavy taxes. A planter by the name of Bore, who wrote on
the troubles of the time, complains that he had to pay a tax of
two thousand livres, though he owned but twenty-one slaves.
The consequence of all this was, that the provisional assembly
of the West resumed its sittings, and called on Col. Mauduit
to restore the flag which he carried off when he dispersed
them. Mauduit, having no means of resistance, started at the
head of his demoralized regiment, on the 4th of March, 1791,
to restore the flag. On the way he was not only assailed and
massacred by the white mob mixed with French and colonial
soldiers, but his corpse was hacked in pieces and borne in
7 
THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
triumph into the city. Among the mutilators was said to be
Madame Martin, a white lady, who afterwards enjoyed the
hospitality of the United States.
The power of the mother country in the colony died, for the
time, with Mauduit. Blanchelande became a fugitive, and a
rich planter, named Caradeux, a monster of cruelty not surpassed by any of the black ones in the succeeding years, became
ruler of the colony and Captain General of the National Guard,
if there could be said to be any ruling where all was anarchy.
Such a power, of course, did not stand firmly.   The petits
blancs, though now acting under the slaveholders, were clamorous for their own rights, and had actually murdered two rich
planters, who were obnoxious to them, and carried about their
heads on poles. The rich mulattoes were talking between their
teeth about their political rights, and in fact entering into a deep
conspiracy in the neighborhood of Port au Prince. Some of
the white planters, especially near the Cape, were still antirevolutionary, and wished to restore Blanchelande and adhere to
their allegiance to France. It is said that they began to talk
about using their human chattels in a military way to promote
their political purposes, and that this sort of conversation falling
on the ears of Toussaint, a confidential slave, the coachman of
M. Bayou de Libertas, was the spark which kindled the first
servile insurrection. Whether or not the planters did have any
such communication, as is asserted, with Toussaint, Boukman,
Jean Francois, Jeannot Bullet and Biassou, certain it is that
those slaves made a pretty extensive conspiracy to assert their
own liberty, and considering their own slender means and slight
knowledge, and the utter ignorance of the masses on which they
operated, they did it with wonderful adroitness. Whether they
had seen the "glittering generality," put forth by the National
Assembly two years before, is not known, but they professed to
have a decree for their general liberation, which they caused to
be read in their assembly by a young mulatto pressed into that
service. They carefully arranged their conspiracy, sanctifying
it, as it is said, with religious ceremonies partly African and
partly Christian.  The sacrifice of a black pig was the African
part, and for the Christian part a hymn in the patois of the
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THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
negroes is on record, the sentinent of which would certainly do
no discredit to King David or Dr. Watts.
Though it was with the utmost difficulty that the few leading
negroes above  named persuaded their brethren to commit
themselves to  an insurrection, when  committed, they were
too eager, and by mistaking the instructions, some of them commenced several hours too early. This pnt the whites on their
guard.  Nevertheless, on the dawn of August 23, 1791, as had
been agreed, a very extensive revolt took place in the neighborhood of Cape Francois, which resulted in the slaughter of
2,000 whites and mulattoes on one side, and about 10,000 blacks
on the other.  It was led bravely by Boukman, who was slain
fighting,-'after which his followers fled before the  National
Guard, and were butchered like sheep. Before they were
checked, the blacks showed in what school they had studied
their lesson, by sticking upon poles the heads of three hundred
whites, at the very spot where the whites had stuck up the
heads of Oge and Chavannes. Yet it is credibly related that
one of the insurgent slaves by the name of Bartholo, in the
midst of the carnage, at the risk of his own life, bore his master,
one Mongin, to a place of safety.  After the insurrection was
crushed, Bartholo was condemned to death on the information of
the very (white) man whose life-he saved.
All classes of whites and mulattoes joined in suppressing
this insurrection, and pushed their advantage of science and
arms so far, that they over-did it. By their wholesale slaughter
of slaves who had no part in the conspiracy they widely roused
the black population in all quarters and pressed thousands of
them to fly to the mountains, where they were organized in
bands under Jean Francois, Biassou and other chiefs, who soon
learned how to direct their energies-efficiently.
After their common peril was abated, the whites and mulattoes at once fell into a bloodier quarrel than before. The
whites swore they would not yield an iota of privilege to the
"bastard race." The mulattoes armed to take their legal
rights by force, and this time they fought so prosperously, that
their antagonists were humbled and obliged to make a treaty of
peace in which they acknowledged that the execution of Oge
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THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
was a crime, and awarded to the mulattoes all the rights they
claimed.
In this last passage at arms, known as the battle of Croix-desBouquets, both the white and mulatto planters employed as
auxiliaries armed slaves, who behaved with great valor on both
sides. These auxiliaries were called Swiss, and in making the
treaty of peace, the white planters contended that these men
having become accustomed to freedom it would not be safe to
send them back to the plantations, or to suffer them to remain
in the colony, to which the mulattoes, in spite of their kinship
agreed. So it was stipulated that they should be colonized
(without wives or families,) to Honduras, with  agricultural
implements and provisions for three months. They ere put
on board a ship to the number of 300, and commissioners to
superintend their settlement were appointed to go with them.
The commissioners, however, probably by the contrivance of
the whites, sailed in another vessel, and the two vessels were
separated the first night. The captain who had the Swiss for
passengers proceeded to Jamaica and offered them all for sale.
The remonstrance of the victims spoiled their market, the inhuman wretch then put to sea and landed them all on a desert
key with scanty provisions.  Before they were quite starved a
passing vessel reported their case to the English Admiral at
Port Royal, and he had them conveyed back to St. Domingo.
The Colonial Assembly received them, and put them in irons
on board a vessel in the harbor of St. Nicolas Mole. They
had not been there long before assassins were sent on board,
wdo shutting the captain in his cabin, selected sixty of the
strongest of the Swiss, knocked them on the head, and threw
them overboard. The rest were left in their chains, as victims
to a pestilential disease, which is said to have been purposely
communicated, and all but twenty or thirty perished.
The peace so sealed with blood was soon broken. The
whites again spurned the mulattoes, and invited the Governor
of Jamaica to seize the colony for the English. He refused
this time, to accept by and by. The war of color raged on,
and the revolted negro  chiefs in  the mountains somewhat
strengthened themselves.  A set of civil commissioners was sent
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THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
from France to make peace but effected nothing.  The city of
Portau-Prince was half burned in a savage quarrel that grew
out of a personal fight between a free black and a white soldier,
and the whites, to satisfy their revenge on the mulattoes, to
whom they attributed the mischief, committed an awful massacre on their wives and children. The loss of property at
Port-au-Prince in a single day is estimated by Lacroix at fifty
million francs. The mulattoes, aided by the brave young
negro, Hyacinth, and a band of revolted slaves, took a terrible
vengeance again at the Croix-des-Bouquets.
It was in this state of things that, in Septenmber, 1792, a new
set of civil commissioners, Sonthonax, Polverel and Ailhaud,
arrived at the Cape. They had left France just before the
dethronement of Louis XVI., were accompanied by 6,000
troops, which added to those already in the island, would make
their force about 14,000, and had the amplest legal powers,
Up to their appointment, the authorities sent from France to
the colony had been satisfactory to the Club llfassiac; that is.
decidedly pro-slavery. But these commissioners were Girondists, and in favor with the Amis des Noirs, who were theoretically opposed to slavery.  This gave the alarm to the Massiac
Club, which took immediate measures to invite the English and
deliver the colony to them. The instructions of the commissioners, however, confined them  to the enforcement of the
laws, specially including that for securing political equality to
free men of all colors, and enjoined upon them "the repression
of the seditious movements of the slave-gangs."  There was
not the slightest squinting towards emancipation in any circumstances. The French government, in fact, as represented in
these instructions, maintained towards slavery in the colony
precisely the same policy as that now maintained by our
Federal administration towards slavery in the disturbed States.
And the commissioners, of whom Polverel and Sonthonax were
distinguished French lawyers, like Gen. Butler, at once offered
their services to suppress servile insurrection. More than that,
they indignantly repelled the accusation of the Club llassiac
that they were going to emancipate slaves, and conceded that
no power but the colonial assembly could act in regard to the
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THiE LESSON OF ST. DOMIINGO.
slaves. Polverel declared that if the national assembly were
to legislate any change whatever in the condition of their
"movable property," he would abdicate his mission on the spot;
and Sonthonax and Ailhaud went further to say, or rather to
swear, if the national assembly should ever become so fanatical
as to pronounce the abolition of slavery, they would oppose it
with all their might.
These commissioners in their opening proclamation commenced with these words:  "Invariably attached to the laws
we come to see them executed; we declare in the name of the
mother-country, of the national assembly and of the king, that
we shall henceforward recognize but two classes of men in the
colony of St. Domningo, the free, without any distinction of
color, and the slaves." They accordingly received into their
army the troops of mixed blood, suppressed the pompons rouges
and Caradeux, and made themselves particularly active everywhere in recapturing and resubjugating the revolted slaves.
Some of this work, too, was horribly bloody. They filled the
prisons of Cape Francois with recovered runaways to the number of four or five hundred!  This splendid slave-hunting, this
sublime "soundness on the goose," however, did not satisfy all
the white planters. Some of them were so turbulent that the
civil commissioners were obliged to put them on board the fleet,
along with the corrupted troops that had helped murder Colonel
Mauduit, to be sent to France. Just at this crisis, the malcontents were rejoiced at the arrival of General Galbaud from
France, a planter of the colony, of the pompon rouge party,
who had got himself appointed governor in the place of Blanchelande. It was falsely supposed that his power was superior to
that of the commissioners.  But the latter soon obliged him to
confess that he had obtained his office in contravention of a law
that forbade any man to be governor who owned an estate in
the colony,by concealing the fact. He, too, was sent to the fleet
to be conveyed to France. But while the fleet was lying in the
harbor, a quarrel occurred between a white naval officer and
a mulatto on the quai. The officer called on the commissioners
to punish the mulatto, who refused to do it without a fair hear
ing of the case. This was seized upon by Galbaud and the
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THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
gentlemen and lady planters on board the fleet, as the means of
rousing the sailors and soldiers on board to ven,geance, and
Galbaud's brother, at the head of two or three thousand armed
men, landed and attacked the comnmissioners in the govern ment palace. Their whole available force for defence, includ ing regulars, mulattoes, and a few free blacks, scarcely
amounted to five hundred.   These  defended them bravely
through the first day, and drove the sailors back to the ships,
but achieved little hope for the certain contest of the next day.
The brains of the two lawyers, under the awful pressure of
circumstances which they could no longer control, during that
night produced a dispatch or circular to the revolted negro
chiefs, then hovering in the vicinity, in which we see the first
gleam of good sense that appears in their conduct. They began
with these remarkable words: "WVe declare that it is the will
of the French Republic and that of its delegates, to give liberty
to all the negro warriors who will fight for the Republic, under
the orders of the civil commissioners." &c. They proceeded to
promise the alleviation of slavery, and final emancipation to
other slaves who would continue to work and behlave well, and
added, " All the slaves who shall be declared free by the delegates, shall be the equals of the white men, and those of all
other colors. They shall enjoy all the rights pertaining to
French citizens."
Having dispatched this call for aid, the commissioners awaited
the attack, which was resumed with still greater force, under
Galbaud in person, at day-break. By eleven o'clock the commissioners  were obliged to retire to a strong-hold in the suburbs,
a n d Galbaud  re mained master of the palace.  The thousands
of sailors not content with this victory, commenced plundering
the city. The wine-vaults falling first in their way, put them
in a condition fit for havoc, and the pillage was soon turned into
an indiscriminate slaughter. There was soon added to this a
horrible falet, which illustrates the wisdom of the costly operations f       or reducing the revolted slaves.   The prisons were
opened, and the hundreds of captives, maddened by a sense of
wrong, were let loose on the scene. Who did it, no one knew;
some attributed it to the city slaves, and some to the commis                   2
13 
THE LESSON OF ST. DOMlINGO.
sioners, who in their report denied it. The released prisoners
joined the sailors in their bloody work, as (lid many of the city
slaves. Others nobly endeavored to save the families of their
masters. The negro chiefs, who had been. as we have seen,
invited in under the direction of the commissioners and the
mulatto officers, drove off the sailors and plundering blacks,
rescued many white citizens and aided in saving a large amount
of property.  Galbaud and many of the white planters escaped
to the fleet, not a few being drowned in their haste to embark.
A large part of perhaps the richest city of its size in the world
was laid in ashes. Lacroix says the day's work cost a hundred
millions of francs.
It was a very sharp corner which the representatives of the
grandest power in Europe turned on that occasion.  A few
weeks before, they had been chasing fugitive slaves with their
army, scattered for that purpose in all quarters, and cutting off
the ears, and branding the left shoulders of all they could catch,
with the letter M. (marron), as a peace offering t6 propitiate
the slaveholders; now they were reporting to their government
that "the new citizens, (the slaves,) have showed an unheard
of courage and intrepidity; in the midst of murder, carnage
and fire, they gave their ancient tyrants an example of humanity, of philanthropy.  While one part of these men was fighting the sailors, the other was occupied in patrolilg the streets,
gathering the frightened whites and conveying them, protected
from insults, into the camp of the civil commissioners, where
we furnished them lodgings and provisions." This was the
compliment they were obliged to pay to the revolted black
slaves, who at their request saved their lives from the very
slave masters whose humble hounds they had made themselves.
Bryan Edwards says they invited in these revolted negro chiefs
by promising them their libertv and the plunder of the city.
Unfortunately for that assertion we have the proclamation on
which they came, which promises nothing but liberty and citi zenship, and the testimony of both white and mulatto slave holders that their conduct was most exemplary.
After his remarkable repulse, Galbaud, with a large part of
the fleet, sailed for the United States, carrying with him a
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THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
great number of white planters, who had been the greatest
pests of the colony. The commissioners had dispersed and
nearly used up their army in the work of putting down antirevolutionary white cabals on one side and negro revolts on
the other.  They were  threatened with invasion from the
Spanish part of the island and from England. On the 10th of
July, 1793, they wrote  to the national assembly,  giving  a
report of the above events at the Cape.  "Such, citizen representatives, is the disastrous position in which Galbaud has left
us in the province of the North. Without a navy, without
money, without the means of procuring any, and with provisions for only one month, yet we do not despair of the safety of
the country.  We are going on; we do not ask of you ships
nor sailors; it is with the natives of the country, that is, the
Africans, that we shall save to France the property of St.
Domingo."
Thus had it been beaten into their politic heads that a better
use could be made of the half million black people, over whom
the fifty thousand white and yellow pretended proprietors had
been fighting, than cutting off' their ears, printing M's on their
skins with hot iron, and keeping them subservient chattels to
the said proprietors.
Mlany of the more moderate and reasonable white slaveholders
begall to be of the same opinion. The national assembly had
so enlarged the powers of the civil commissioners that they
could act on the question of slavery, according to their own
interpretation of their instructions, if it became necessary.
But almost immediately after the troubles of the Cape, before
they could act in concert, they were obliged to separate, Polverel
going to the West.  There he found the Spaniards exerting such
an influence on the revolted slaves, that without waiting for the
concurrence of Sonthonax (Ailhaud had returned to France) he
issued a proclamation on the 27th August, 1793, giving not only
liberty to all revolted slaves who would return to labor, but, by
a sort of agrarian law, dividing among them the estates of
planters that had become vacant. The same provision was
made for slaves who had borne or should bear arms for the
Republic, and ultimate liberty and landed provision was prom
15 
THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
ised to all other slaves. This action was confined to the
province of the West, but encouragement was given that if
should soon be extended to the other provinces. Equally without concert, the younger and more radical Sonthonax, on the
29th of August, proclaimed his decree of emancipation for the
province of the North. His decree gave universal liberty, but
made no landed provision. It provided a detailed plan for
securing industry and order. This very successful document
quoting from the then most recent French Declaration of
human rights, commenced thus: "llen are born and continue
free and equal in their rights; such, citizens, is the gospel of
France; it is more than time it were proclaimed in all the departments of the Republic." It then proceeds to state, what the
commissioners had before publicly and solemnly denied, that the
commission was sent not only to secure the equality of the free,
but to prepare gradually for the general enfranchisement of the
slaves, and to plead the most funny and ingenious excuses for
having sustained slavery, as we  have seen they did.  The
emancipation was afterwards made universal in the West, and
completed by a proclamation of Polverel in the province of the
South, October 31, 1793.
After the last chain was broken there were no " horrors,"
except those which necessarily arose from the English invasion,
invited by the rebel planters.  The planters who remained in
the colony, faithful to France, found no difficulty in carrying
on their plantations prosperously with the hired labor of their
former slaves. After two months trial of freedom in the North
and West, Polverel, the distinguised veteran, cool and sagacious
Parisian lawyer, has these remarkable words in his above mentioned proclamation of liberty for the South.
"Two years of war against the insurgent Africans had convinced the proprietors that it was thenceforth impossible to
maintain slavery. Their works were deserted, their houses
and their plantations were burned and laid waste. France
poured  out men  and  money; and  while her armies were
annihilated in St. Domingo, those of the Africans were recruited
every day by new desertions from the slave-gangs. The colonist despaired of ever seeing his land restored to value, because
he knew of no culture but that of slaves.
16
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THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
"The delegates of the Republic presented to the Africans the
idea and hope of general liberty, a certainty of a living to the
warriors, and a share in the produce to the cultivators; this
word sufficed to create soldiers for the Republic, to reestablish
order, to re-people the workshops and reanimate industry.
The proprietors, astonished at this prodigy (for it was such to
them), voluntarily, and with a spirit of generous rivalry, gave
liberty to the Africans who had till then been under their
control. They even entreated the civil commission to hasten
as much as possible the declaration of general liberty, and the
publication of the regulations which the new order of things
demanded.",
Just after this, the British Government, that never does
things by the halves, landed an invading army. The effort to
make St. Domingo a British colony was continued about five
years, cost Great Britain about one hundred millions of dollars,
and forty-five thousand lives, and finally she had the honor of
being expelled from the island by black and mulatto troops
under a pure black general-in-chief.
Under that chief, the born statesman who probably planned
the first slave insurrection, of August 23, 1791, the colony was
saved to France. Under his wise, though rather despotic civil
administration from 1796 to 1802, the colony, to use the language of the French General Lacroix, "marched as if by
enchantment towards its ancient splendor." Though the laboring population by the slaughters and famines of war had been
reduced to less than four hundred thousand, and the productive
capital, other than land, had been mainly annihilated, the
exports of one of Toussaint's best years compare with those of
a year in the palmiest period of slavery, in regard to three
principal items, as follows:
Under Slavery.
.    145,192,043 lbs.
.   71,663,187 lbs.
o6,698,858 lbs.
This is pretty well for a colony that was "utterly ruined" by
emancipation.
How all this was lost to France by Napoleon's costly attempt
to restore slavery, is of no further importance to our present
17
Under Toussaint.
53,400,000 lbs.
34,370,000 lbs.
4,050,000 lbs.
Su,yar,.
Coffee,.
Cotton,.
2 
THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
purpose, than as it proves that the spirit of liberty, once
aroused in black men, is no more temporary or evanescent
than in white ones.
What is the lesson of this history? Is it not this? Negro
slaves, ignorant, contented, jolly, cowardly, passive as they
may be, can be educated to insurrection in such a school
as the two very different governments at Washington and
Montgomery are now establishing, and probably will be.
Though both these governments should at first agree perfectly in ignoring the negro, and even join their forces to
suppress "seditious movements" of slaves, one or the other will
at last be obliged to recognize black men as a raw material
of military power. Though the black material may be very
raw, under proper guidance, it may soon be made very effective, on either side.
Had the French commissioners when they first landed in
St. Domingo, instead of proclaiming their purpose to reduce
the slaves to subjection, and keep them subject, made the
proclamation which they did one year after, they would have
saved some ten thousand white and thirty thousand colored
lives, they would have saved the capital city from conflagration,
and their own consistency from shipwreck. It cost all that to
sacrifice the principles of the revolution in the mother country
to a temporary supposed expediency in the colony.
Slave insurrections are easily put down for the time, but
when they occur while the country is disturbed and excited by
war, they can never fail to increase the chance of success in a
subsequent rising, by the experience which those who are sure
to escape will have acquired. There was really but one
regular slave insurrection in St. Domingo, and that was
promptly suppressed; but out of it grew at least four able
guerilla chiefs, and one accomplished military leader, whom
Bonaparte could conquer only by falsehood and perfidy.
Nobody who understands the world, expects that the magna nimity, or sense of justice, or regard for the fundamental prin ciples of Christianity, in the people who are now engaged in a
life or death struggle to sustain the government of their choice
-sentiments and principles that have not been string enough
18
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THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
in peace even to cause them to apply a file to the roughness of
the negro's chain —will now, in time of war, impel them to apply
the cold chisel. But if they will not have the manhood, selfrespect, "fanaticism," or whatever else it may be, to gratify a
sense of justice, and wipe off a blot of inconsistency from the
beloved institutions of the country, will they have the pure
folly not to sacrifice a little prejudice of race and complexion,
if at that cost they can effect a speedy and favorable solution
of the difficulty?
If we have not justice or philanthropy enough to do spontaneously what France was obliged to do for St. Domingo, ought
we not to have wit enough? Nations are saved, after all, only
by their wits. The Yankee nation has saved itself from
poverty by its wits. In its own geographical domain, it has wit
enough not to work against the grain of nature, but with it.
WVind, water, fire, foreigners,-men, animals, vegetables and
minerals, all free in their way, but all have to work for the
Yankee. Yankees have tastes, loves and hates, more perhaps,
than they can give good reasons for. But who ever heard of a
live Yankee sawing his boards and grinding his corn by hand,
because he thought the stream running by his door, coming out
of a peat bog, too black to be beautiful?
WVe are firm believers, as at present advised, in the intellectual and physical superiority of the white "race" over the
black, ethnologically speaking. But the great Spirit of the
Universe, who delights in varieties, contrasts, parallel differences, rainbows, succession, wave after wave, and all that, is
always stronger than any one "race," no matter how pert and
proud of itself. When he is going to raise any thing particularly high, he likes to begin mighty low.  Witness in the old
Roman slave-market stupid natives of Britain, hardly worth
selling. His law for all races is, to baptize their infant greatness in insurrection. So he did our special Yankee race at
Lexington and Bunker Hill.   So he did the ebon brothers
that for more than half a century have held the most toothsome
island on the globe against the whole white "race," inceluding
the very slave-power which has ruled us all that time, and
against which we have only just rebelled. Is it not about time
19 
THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
to expect a baptism of blood for the four millions of the same
race on this continent, when it has manifestly already cost the
conversion of several millions of white mIen into devils, to hold
them to the condition of brutes? If the blood must flow, why
not regulate the flow?
If the white race has not yet reached the summit-level
between its growth and its decay, it is because it will, in the
main, as it has begun to do, place itself in line with the universe, in regard to God's favorite principle of tolerating and
encouraging variety in unity.  But if the Yankee branch, in
spite of its e-pluribus-uuntm professions, is going to persist in
the old chopping-and-stretching-all-men-to-one-bedstead experiment, if it is bound not to recognize any manhood below the
zero of the dye-house, it will soon pass into history as a sapless,
dry, rotten limb, be blown off, and only those who may know
the meaning of knots, will know that it ever existed.
To recur to the lesson. Our Federal Government is situated,
in regard to our present controvery, very much as France was
in St. Domingo, represented by its civil commissioners. England is still more interested in our quarrel than she was in
theirs, but in a position to make her play a very different role.
She wants no slaves, but she wants cotton, and has no prejudice
against color. Indeed she is never better suited than when she
is surrounded by the largest possible proportion of free black
folks. Suppose, with the utmost dignity and grandeur, we persist in the policy, which failed after the fairest trial under
Sonthonax and Polverel, the policy of adhering with self-sacrificing magnanimity to the constitutional view of slavery which
has brought all the trouble on us, and disdaining to make any
use of the negro, except to offer him up, when caught revolting,
as a propitiatory sacrifice to the demon of secession, till the
united forces of Jeff. Davis's "white trash" in arms, Virginia
sedge, yellow fever, hope deferred and other natural causes
have worn off the edge of our enthusiasm, the soles of our
shoes, and the seats of our trowsers, the pockets having become
empty, what will prevent the English at that juncture from
taking the quarrel off our hands, invading the cotton States and
doing just what Sonthonax and Polverel (lid to drive them out
20
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TIlE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
of St. Domingo? They probably learned some wisdom in that
affair.  It they do it, an(l convert the Southern States into a
Southern Canada, we shall be at least no worse oti than we
have been, probably far better, and the slave States will be infinitely better off. But is that the best thing which we northern
children of'76, and our regenerated Federal Government, rejoicing in the unanimous loyalty of nineteen out of the thirty-four
States can do?
Gentle reader, don't suppose me insensible to the intense
whisper which has been, all this while, buzzing into my ears
from a million voices —" Policy! policy! policy! especially in
war-don't for goodness gracious sake, spoil the majesty of this
unanimous northern enthusiasm, or drive into open secession
the ticklish Unionists of the Border States." All I have to
reply is, " Spit the meal out of your mouths. In times that try
men's souls hypocrisy is not always particularly useful. If
Gov. Magoffin and the witty Prentice are not secessionists at
heart, plain common sense won't hurt either of them. The
Federal Executive is the lawgiver in the rebel States, in the
time of rebellion, and cannot shirk that responsibility. He
represents a government which was designedly created without
the organs to recognize any human being as a chattel. As
long as the Federal Government represented by him gives
unjust and foolish laws, the rebels can fight with good courage,
believing that the black people will remain neutral or quiets
and knowing that their Maker, who will vindicate the good
sense of his own workmanship, cannot take sides with those
who treat that workmanship as a contemptible botch, not worth
using at a pinch. A sensible proclamation from the Federal
Executive setting forth that all the inhabitants of the rebel
States, who will be loyal, shall be, and be treated as, citizens of
the United States, would paralyze the rebels worse than the
foul Hebrew,words did Belshazzar, and prove to all sensible
men at the South that they can safely trust us, because we are
not simpletons, Pecksniffs and sneaks, as they had always been
obliged to believe."
ELIZUR WRIGHT.
BOSTON, 13 Avery Street, MIay 22, 1861.
21 
APPEND IX.
Proclamations of Polverel and Sonthonax.
The Proclamation of Polverel, dated August 27, 1793, only
conferred or rather confirmed a partial liberty, and promised
to moderate the slave code and raise the slaves nearly to the
level of freed men, as witness the following articles extracted
from it:
ART. 1. All Africans or descendants of Africans, of every sex and age, who
will remain on, or return to, the estates to which they have heretofore belonged,
which estates have been or shall be declared vacant in pursuance of my proclamation of the 21st of this month, are declared free, and shall enjoy, from the
present time, all the rights of French citizens, on the sole condition of their
engaging to continue to work in the cultivation of the said estates.
3. All the negroes hitherto in a state of insurrection or revolt, and also the
independent negroes who inhabit the Maniel (or Bahoruco), or other places in
the Spanish part of St. Domingo, shall have the benefit of the provisions of
Art. 1.
8. The whole of the vacant estates in the province of the West shall belong in
common, to all the warriors of said province and all the cultivators of said
vacant estates, in the proportions which shall be hereafter determined.
9. The estates shall remain undivided during the war and the internal troubles,
till the time which shall be indicated in Art. 24; the revenues of them shall be
paid into the treasury of the administration; a responsible treasurer shall render an account of them each year, and shall distribute to each his share, according to the proportions indicated by the preceding article, and those which shall
be hereafter.
12. Every creditor, present or absent, who shall not present his claim within
one year at most, is non-suited.
24. There shall be no process of partition of estates declared vacant, among
the new proprietors, until after a total valuation of the debts, principal and
interest.
37. There shall be admitted to this partition, as warriors, all the armed negroes
who are actually in a state of insurrection, who will restore to the Republic, or
aid in restoring to its possession the aforesaid territories before, being obliged by
force of arms to do so, who will take the oath of fidelity to the Republic, and who
will fight for it to the end of the foreign war and the internal troubles.
38. Liberty shall be irrevocably acquired by them, by the sole act of releasing
the territory and taking the oath of fidelity to the Republic; the obligation to
bear arms in future, in the service of the Republic, being imposed upon them
only as a necessary condition of being admitted to a share of the land as warriors, they can be permitted to become cultivators whenever they relinquish the
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TIlE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
military profession, provided they fulfil the conditions above prescribed to cultivators.
39. All the real estate belonging to the crown of Spain, to its nobles, monks and
priests. of which the republic shall make conquest, shall in the same manner be
divided between the warriors in the service of the republic in St. Domingo, and
the workmen or cultivators who shall engage themselves in its cultivation.
40. All Spanish and all African insurgents, either fugitive slaves (marrons) or
independent, and all other individuals of whatever nation they may be, who
shall have assisted the arms of the Republic, and who shall have contributed to
facilitate its conquest of the Spanish part, shall be admitted to the partition, as
French warriors.
41. All armed citizens of the province of the West, who shall remain for home
defence, shall also be admitted to the partition, the same as their brethren in
arms who shall go to conquer the eastern part of the island.
42. All the fugitive Africans (marrons), insurgent or independent, as well as
all the slavcs of the Spanish Crown, of the nobles, and of the Spanish monks
and priests, who will apply themselves to the cultivation of the land, shall be
declared free, French citizens, and admitted to a share in the lands aforesaid, as
cultivators.
43. There shall, moreover, be observed, in the partition of the lands aforesaid
of the crown, nobles, monks and priests, all the provisions of my preceding
proclamation, relative to the partition of lands declared vacant in the province
of the West.
44. In case the civil commission should decide to extend this Proclamation to
the provinces of the North and the South, the estates declared vacant shall be
taken in one mass for the three provinces, and the warriors  and cultivators of
the French part shall be admitted, without distinction of provinces, to share
among them the totality of the said estates declared vacant, and the proceeds of
the same, according to the order and conditions which have just been prescribed
for the province of the West.
The Proclamation of Sonthonax, dated August 29, 1793,
contained the following Articles:
ART. 1. The declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen, [that of the
French National A,sembly,] shall be printed, published, and posted in all needful places.
2. All the negroes and mixed-bloods now in slavery are declared free to enjoy
all the rights attached to the quality of French citizens; they shall, however, be
subject to the regulations contained in the following articles:  5. Domestics, of either sex, shall be engaged for the service of their masters
or mistresses only for three months, and that for wages to be fixed on by mutual
agreement.
6. The heretofore slaves, domestics, attached to the service of persons over
sixty years of age, to invalids, to children at nurse or under ten years, shall not
be at liberty to quit that service. Their wages remain fixed at eight dollars
(gourdes), per month, for nurses, and forty-eight dollars per annum for others,
without distinction of sex.
9. The negroes at present attached to the estates of their former masters shall
be bound to remain on them; they shall be employed in the cultivation of the
soil.
10. The enrolled warriors who serve in the army or in the garrison, shall have
the right to become employed as cultivators on the estates, by previously obtain
23 
THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO.
ing permission from their commander, or an order from us, which cannot be
given without a volunteer to supply the place vacated.,
11. The heretofore slave cultivators shall be engaged for one year, during
which time they cannot change from the estate without permission of the justice
of the peace.
12. The revenues of each estate shall be divided into three equal portions,
after deducting the taxes, which shall be levied On the whole.   One-third appertains to the ownership of the soil, and shall belong to the proprietor.  He shall
have the benefit of another third for the expenses of managem ent.  The remaining third shall be divided among the cultivators, in the manner hereinafter
provided.
19. The cultivators, moreover, shall have their provision patches, which shall
be assigned equitably, having regard to the quality of the soil, and the quantity
which will be sufilcient for each.
26. The Inspector-General of the province of the North will be charged to
inspect all the estates, and to put the justices Of the peace in possession of the
fullest possible information as to the order and discipline of the laboring forces,
and to report on the same to us and to the Governor and Attorney-General. I-e
shall be on duty at least twenty days in each month.
27. The correction -of'the'whip is absolutely'suppressed; in its place shall be
substituted, for faults:ag'ainst discipline, the bar for one, two, or three days,
according to the exigency of the case. The severeSt penalty shall be the loss of a
part or the whole of the wages.
28. In regard to civil misdemeanors, the heretofore slaves shall be judged as
other French citizens.
29. Cultivators shall not be obliged to labor on Sunday.
31. Pregnant women, in the seventh month, shall not work in the field, and
shall not return to such work till two months after their confinement.
32  Cultivators shall be able to leave the estate on account of health or from
manifest incompatibility of character, or on demand of the gang in which they
are employed.  All such cases shall be submitted to the justice of the peace,
assisted by his assessors.
33. Fifteen days after the promulgation of this proclamation, all men who
have no property, and who shall not be enrolled, or attached to cultivation, or
employed in domestic service, and who shall be found wandering, shall be
arrested and imprisoned.
Another article extends the same to women, and another
provides that this imprisonment shall extend to one month for
the first offence, three for the second, and twelve, on public
works, for the third.
38. Persons attached to cultivation and domestics, shall, on no pretext, leave
the commune where they reside, without the permission of the municipality.
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